Naaman is healed in Israeland so concludes that God is in Israel.So he asks to take muleloads of dirt with him back to Syriato make it holy ground.The tenth leper is made cleanand so heads off to find a priestbut doesn’t know whether to go to the temple in Jerusalemor the temple in Gerazim in Samaria.So he goes back to thank Jesus.__________________________________These foreigners have it right.They experience healing.They know that it transcends—goes above and beyond—anything they have ever thought or experienced before.It’s a faith experience.So they think about it.They examine the facts.They look at the reality around them.And they place their faith in their own experience,and act on it.__________________________________That’s pure theology:First, an experience.Then, believing that the experience is real.Thinking about it and trying to understand what it means.__________________________________These readings today reverberate in our own lives.Each of us has been, at some time—maybe even yet and still—in some way one of the outsiders, one of the foreigners,one of those in need of healing.Syrians and Samaritans and Paul in chains—they’re outsiders.Sunni and Shiite, Israeli and Palestinian—outsiders.Gays and straights, the clean and the addicted,blacks and reds and yellows and browns and whites.They are “other,” and we don’t trust them.They’re homeless.They have B.O., filthy clothes, scraggly beards.They look desperate,like they’re ready to pounce and rob you.No matter that they don’t have an addressso they can’t get mail or apply for a jobor wash their clothes or take a shower.They might even be HIV-positive,so you don’t even want to shake hands with themor touch a doorknob after they do. .________________________________________But the scriptures teach us what to do with outsiders.Elisha, the prophet of God, reached out to Naamanand sent him to wash in the healing waters of the Jordan.Jesus reached out to the lepersand sent them to the priests to be certified clean.Elisha and Jesus did not hesitate to reach out,to act in compassion and kindness.There wasn’t a whisper of judgment in their treatment,only kindness and caring and concern.________________________________________And these foreigners, these outsiders, are changed forever.They have experienced God,and not just as a healer.They have experienced Godin the one who embraces the outsider.They have experienced Godas one who goes beyond all the limitsof nation and culture and religion.The experience catapults them into faith.They believe in the God who has touched them.________________________________________And so they respond.Naaman wants to give a gift, but Elisha won’t take it.So he asks for enough dirt to take alongso that he can have holy ground to pray on,enough so he can stay in touchwith the God who has made him whole.The cured leper returns to Jesus to give thanks,and Jesus tells him it’s faith that has saved him.Even though a Samaritan,the leper had believed the word of a Jewthat he was healed.The leper realizes that God is not in the temple,neither in Gerazim in Samaria nor in Jerusalem in Israel.God is in the loving acceptance of another human being.________________________________________The first Christians were not sureabout how far to take this inclusive lovethat they had seen in Jesus.Jesus was a Jew.They were Jews.What would an outsider have to do to follow Jesus?Would the outsider have to become Jewish?Be circumcised?Follow the dietary restrictions?The early Christian community struggled with those questionsand eventually opened their hearts to the outsidersin the way Jesus had shown them.________________________________________Every once in a while I hear someone talkabout the deserving poor… and the undeserving poor.I’ll give someone a dollar for the bus,and someone will see itand tell me not to give that person anythingbecause he already gets $350 a month disability check.Or because she spent 18 months in Stryker for prostitution.Or because he’s a transvestite.Or a Muslim.Or whatever, just different.One of those people.Not us.________________________________________But they are us.We are all different,all on the margins at one time or another,for one reason or another.So we all have a responsibilityto end the marginalization of peoplewho are out there right now.________________________________________This year,50 years after Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech,racism still exists in America.A coalition of Toledoans,with funding from the Toledo Blade and the Anderson family,is working to change minds about people who are “other.”One of the projects they have put togetheris called “Be Kind to a Different Race Month.”There are details about it in today’s bulletin.Anyone who volunteers is askedto take on a project or do an act of kindnessfor someone of a different race, 10 times in October.They give the person a “Combating Racism” cardexplaining the effort.Some of the suggested random kindnesses arepaying for someone’s groceries, raking leaves, mowing a lawn,handing a person a gift card,putting change in a parking meter, walking a dog,visiting someone in the hospital,hauling in someone’s garbage cans,I signed up.As a white person, I’m part of the privileged majority here.I’m going to keep my eyes openfor people of color who are living on the margins,and I’m going to go out of my way to be kind.Some people won’t want my help and will walk away.Some may even get angry at me, or try to take advantage of me.No doubt I’ll end up helping someone who didn’t need it.And that’s all okay.The person I’m really working onis me.I hope to be a better person by the time November rolls around.More aware of discrimination.More caring, more compassionate.More sensitive to people who are different from me.More like Jesus.